


Five times Graves' Aurors had his back

by maggiedragon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Companion Piece, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon/pseuds/maggiedragon
Summary: Set in the same universe as We Get What We Deserve, after a Tumblr ask turned into nearly 2300 words of rambling. Unbetaed because really, this was just supposed to be a little drabble-y thingCN: Gore in part two.





	

_One: Septima_

Percival Graves would be the finest Auror of his generation. Provided he actually survived his probationary period as a junior Auror. Realistically, that put his odds at about fifty-fifty, but Septima Fletcher was betting on Graves.

“Director Jesseril wants your probationary status revoked,” she told him. “You’re not authorized to make arrests without your supervisory Auror present.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” The young man in the worn leather chair across from her wasn’t even old enough to drink according to the state of New York. Septima knew that never stopped junior Aurors from apparating over the border into New Jersey; she’d overheard the war stories of what happened in Atlantic City while the young men and women nursed their hangovers with coffee and Pepperup potion in the canteen. 

Never Percival. She’d found the young man asleep at his desk before when everyone else had left or already in a training room when she arrived in the morning. He usually landed in her office when he’d butted heads with his supervisor, but this one took the cake. He was bruised and battered; his wand arm in a sling and his normally neat dark hair disheveled.

“You went to Auror Remius with a lead and he told you your source was invalid. So you followed it up anyway and now…” She glanced at the paperwork. “Four obliviations and a burned down building. This is sloppy, Percival. We can’t afford sloppy.” 

For a moment there was something that looked like fury on Percival’s face but his tone was still even. “Yes, ma’am.” 

She sighed. “There’s something else and you’re not going to tell me.” 

“...not ‘till I’m sure, ma’am.” 

There was something deeply earnest and just a hair vulnerable in Percival’s face and she sighed. “I’ll trust you if you trust me. I’ll speak to Director Jesseril, but you come to me before you hare off and do anything.”

A flash of gratitude. “Yes, ma’am.”

(Two weeks later, he came to her with blood on his clothes and a file of evidence in his hand. _Remius is dirty,_ he said and while he hadn’t come to her entirely before haring off and doing something, it was close enough. He was her junior Auror after that.)

 _Two: Sophie_  
The Boston Aurors were good at their job. Ariadne and Gaspard Duxellois were just better. Folie a deux, the local director had called it when Sophie had sat shocked and staring at the blood on her manicured nails, soaking her French cuffs and slowly drying in the crevices of her blue topaz cufflinks. 

They hadn’t even realized there were two of them. Their spells were so similar; their madness so parallel, so when they finally had tracked the missing children to the ruined Colonial house, Graves had volunteered to cover the back entrance. They were in Boston, after all. The local Aurors should have the honor of making the arrest. They were just there as backup. 

Except when Ariadne Duxellois came out the front and was caught in a hail of Stunning Charms, Gaspard Duxellois abandoned his sister and tried to escape out the other exit. It hadn’t been the first spell that caught Graves. Or the second or even a third, but somewhere in the frenetic fire, a Scindere hex had laid Graves open from rib to hip and he’d collapsed. 

The hail of spells didn’t _stop_ ; she barely had time to cast any offensive spells in return, only to counterspell and desperately pour power into the Shield Charm she was now holding for both of them. But he was bleeding, blood soaking into the ground and body laid open in a way that Sophie’s mind had skittered away from because if she let herself think the word for the things that were laying pink and wet and glistening exposed to the sky when they should have been inside Graves she would start screaming and never stop. 

So she dropped to one knee and held the wound shut. She held Graves’--- no, don’t think it-- She held what needed to stay inside inside of him and she held the Shield Charm as Gaspard Duxellois howled with rage and turned to fight the Boston Aurors who had come up behind him. 

And when it was done, when both Duxellois were in custody and Graves had been rushed away?

Then she started screaming. 

_Three: TJ_

Taylor James Oakhurst was new, but he wasn’t an idiot, thank you very much. He knew when he was being fed a load of nonsense by the senior Aurors to test how gullible he was. Yes, the Duxellois siblings were a rare and terrifying kind of insane, but really, he somehow doubted that Miss McIlvain had actually held in his boss’s intestines. And he especially doubted that the Boston Aurors had been unable to retrieve a roughly three inch section of Graves’ left-twelve rib from the crime scene. 

He also wasn’t convinced that Director of Magical Security Percival Gondulphus Graves had a long-distance and (apparently deeply carnal?) relationship with Theseus Scamander. Still when he had even broached the topic of Graves’ odd propensity to take leave only when the dragon killer war hero was in town, Madalena Cortez had told in no uncertain terms, that if he had an issue with with Graves’ personal life, he had the next five minutes to either get past it or get his ass transferred. 

One month after he’d transferred to Graves’ squad, he was finishing some paperwork in their briefing room and trying not to be anxious that his boss was also there looking through notes for another case. A courier delivered a package to Graves and when the Director opened it, a roughly three inch section of weathered human rib clattered onto the floor. 

So that was apparently true. 

All hell broke loose. Ariadne Duxellois was loose and she had apparently transferred all of her rage and obsession onto the Aurors who had put her in jail. It was bad. One of the Boston Aurors died. Her name was Bellora Wainwright and Graves had known her, apparently. He’d not left his office since they’d returned to the Woolworth Building. No one had gone in either. Except Theseus Scamander had walked out of a fire place with a face that bordered on terror. He’d walked into Graves’ office about two hours ago. 

So that was also apparently true. 

He had paperwork that he needed Graves to sign and he was currently hovering outside his boss’s door, debating whether to knock, slide it under the door or simply leaving the reports for tomorrow and fleeing. There was someone else on this floor though; a scrawny wizard tucked into a corner with self-writing quill. And a camera. 

Journalist. With Taylor’s luck, probably from the Wailer. Nothing sold quite like tragedy and the last thing Graves needed was a splashy headline asking if Theseus Scamander’s presence meant the ICW was intervening. 

“Can I help you?” 

The man looked panicked for a moment. “Oh. Um. Yes. I was just...I’m Representative Sapherine’s attache and---”

“Lying through your teeth?” Taylor sighed. “Look. You need to leave. You can do that now, when I’m asking you nicely, or you can have a conversation with one of the many women in my squad. All of whom are bigger and scarier than I am.” 

The man puffed up. “Press access to MACUSA officials is a long-standing and essential part of a---”

“You work for a _tabloid_.”

“Knowing whether or not the Director is emotionally compromised by the death of his--”  
“Right. The answer to that is no.” Taylor took the man by his arm. “C’mon.” He bustled the man into the elevator and told Red that in no uncertain terms, he wasn’t to be allowed back. 

He was about to leave when he heard the door of Graves’ office click open. 

Shit. 

Taylor seriously considered just jumping over the balcony. He’d be able to transform before he hit the bottom and frankly, half of MACUSA watching him fall screaming was probably going to be less embarrassing than talking to Theseus Scamander, who was currently standing in front of him with a quizzical expression on his face.

Six-foot-two, stubble and jawline and red hair, dragon killer, war hero Theseus _goddamn_ Scamander. He looked every inch like he did in the newsreels of the war that Taylor had devoured as a teenager. 

“Can I help you, Mr.----” Theseus Scamander asked in that soft Received Pronunciation accent and all Taylor could do was squeak. 

“I...uh…” 

Theseus’ eyes flicked to the elevator, the journalist still frantically straining to get his photograph. “I see. Thank you.”

“...yeah.” Taylor still had the papers in his hand. “I wasn’t...lurking or anything, I…” 

“I didn’t think you were.” Theseus answered. He glanced at the forms. “Do you want me to give those to Percival?” 

“I…” Taylor turned red. “I--I’ll just wait. I don’t suppose….would you mind terribly _not_ telling him I was here?”

“Not a problem.” Theseus bowed his head. “Well then. Good evening, Mr.--”

“Oakhurst. Taylor Oakhurst. And it’s….really an honor to meet you. Sir.” 

Theseus smiled. “Likewise, Mr. Oakhurst,” he answered and went back inside. 

 

_Four: Maddie_

Fresh reports had come in from the other cities. Maddie had annotated them with possible leads as to where they might locate Bartholomew Barebone and brought them up to Graves. When she stepped into his office though, the man was leaned over his desk, squinting as he read--- was that a Bible?

“Are you...thinking of converting, sir?” she asked, shutting the door behind her. The Graves family had made no secret of holding religion accountable for what had been done to wizardkind.

Graves snorted expressively. “Not likely,” he said and then winced. “That was unfair. I’m sorry.” 

“Then why the Bible?” 

“Because…” Graves seemed to be considering something for a long moment. “Because there’s a zealot downstairs that I’d like very much to convince that he isn’t a monster. And this seems to be the language he speaks.” He rapped his knuckles on the book. “But I seem to be stuck in prohibitions about eating shellfish.” 

“May I?” Maddie held out a hand and Graves handed her the book. “...because you are reading Leviticus. Which is a book that alternates between making you want to fall asleep and making you feel terrible about yourself.”

“I’d noticed.” 

“That’s not what Christianity is about, Graves.” She shrugged, glancing up at him as she flipped through, looking for the passages she wanted. “The point of it is God’s impossible faith-- and that’s what you’ll want to remind him of. That mercy is mercy precisely because it is undeserved.” She slid the book back to him. “Here. Romans 3.” 

Graves took it back. “...vipers and open graves? Merlin, Maddie, how do you---”

“Keep reading.” 

He smiled, finally, when he got to it. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

“That better?’ 

Graves nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Maddie.” 

_Five: Tina_

Tina Goldstein had always heard stories of the raucous confrontations that Mr. Graves would have with Congress and with the Security Committee. She hadn’t ever been party to one before, but still, this seemed worse than usual.  
“Someone from MACUSA made an attempt on Credence Barebone’s life.” Graves’ voice was clear and calm but his feet were planted like an animal backed into a corner. He had been House Wampus in Ilvermorny, Tina remembered, and for a moment she had an image of the massive panther-like beast, all teeth and claws and yellow eyes in the darkness. 

_Wampus cats only snarl or growl during ritual intimidations,_ Newt had told her in an Arizona diner, gesturing wildly over the table as the house elf refilled their coffee. _It’s one of the ways you can tell their intent. If you can hear them, they’re trying to avoid killing. It’s when they go quiet that you need to worry._

“Only a very select group had access to that knowledge. A group which includes everyone in this room and thus presumably all their staff. And you’re asking, Representative Vinaver, why I didn’t _inform you_ before launching a sensitive operation?” 

“There are checks and balances for a reason, Director. This committee exists to ensure that the DMLE doesn’t abuse its already considerable authority.”

“Rescuing an eight year old girl is abusing my authority?”

“Provoking a Scourer? Revealing that we’re aware of their existence and driving them either further into hiding or to more desperate measures? Yes, Director. That is an abuse of your authority. This Committee has already deliberated. You are suspended from your positions as Director and Senior Auror for a period of no less than two weeks.” 

Was that pain on Graves’ face? It was impossible to identify before it was schooled away but Tina could see his hands close into fists and knew if she let the Wampus pounce, Graves was going to land himself with much more than a suspension. 

“May I address the Committee?” Her voice barely carried in the Pentagram Chamber, but it got Graves’ attention-- and Picquery’s.

“Miss Goldstein.”

She swallowed. “Mr. Graves has rapport with the asset. He was the reason Mr. Barebone turned himself in. I--- I think if you suspend him, you’ll also hamper the investigation. And if there is a possibility that Bartholomew Barebone will get desperate, don’t we need Credence talking?”


End file.
